The present invention relates to an improved grip for golf clubs, tennis racquets, baseball bats and other sporting equipment employing handles subject to shock when such devices are impacted by a ball.
It is well known that shock generated by impact between a golf club and a golf ball or a tennis racquet and a tennis ball can adversely affect muscle tissue and arm joints, such as elbow joints. The energy generated by such impact is usually of high frequency and short duration with rapid decay, and which is often known as "impact shock." Tight grasping of a golf club grip or tennis racquet grip to keep it from slipping in a user's hands contributes to such impact shock.
Applicant has previously developed resilient grips which successfully reduce or substantially eliminate impact shock to the muscle and arm joints of the users of golf clubs and the like. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,374,059 granted to applicant Dec. 20, 1994, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,482 granted to applicant Dec. 17, 1996. Such earlier grips utilize a polyurethane layer bonded to a felt layer to define a strip which is spirally wrapped around the handle of a golf club, tennis racquet or baseball bat to conform generally to the external configuration of such handle. In earlier grips of applicant's design, the thickness of the polyurethane layer relative to the thickness of the felt layer as compared to prior art resilient grips was a minimum of approximately 0.18, with the thickness of the polyurethane layer being about equal to or thicker than the thickness of the felt layer in a typical grip of my design. Also, in some of such earlier grips, the side edges of the polyurethane-felt strip tended to unravel in use, and where the strip was not properly applied to a golf club handle, the grip would tend to loosen relative to the handle, particularly, when a golf club was withdrawn from a golf club bag. To overcome these disadvantages, my later grip designs utilize heat-compressed radially inwardly extending reinforcement side edges formed in the polyurethane layer along the length of the strip. The recessed side edges also enhance the frictional grip of a user's hands on the golf club or tennis racquet. Although my prior grips provide generally satisfactory results, under humid or rainy conditions slippage of a user's hands on the grip can occur with a result in diminished control of the golf club or tennis racquet. To counter such slippage the user must exert considerable gripping pressure on the grip.